


devilish

by basementmixtape



Series: flowers of flesh and blood [2]
Category: The Turn of the Screw - Henry James, The Turning (2020)
Genre: Boys In Love, Boys Kissing, Creepy kids, Gay Miles Fairchild, Ghosts, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Miles Fairchild And Flora Fairchild Are Best Friends, Miles Fairchild Is A Good Big Brother, Miles Fairchild Needs A Hug, Quint Being a Dick, sorta canon compliant
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-18
Updated: 2020-02-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:08:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22783039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/basementmixtape/pseuds/basementmixtape
Summary: “i like dead things, says the landscape.they cannot hurt me.”-richard sikena friend on the property.
Relationships: Miles Fairchild/Original Male Character
Series: flowers of flesh and blood [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1622749
Comments: 9
Kudos: 39





	devilish

**Author's Note:**

> alternatively titled: dorian discovers his boyfriend is unhinged. you may have to read angels and devils for context.
> 
> some parts of this fic were inspired by thoroughbred boy by tortellini.
> 
> trigger warning for past sexual abuse and homophobia.

Miles had never expected him to come here. He had told him in delicate whispers about the property, holding each other in a shared dorm room, beds on opposite walls, the middle of the floor a gaping wound, beds bolted down to keep them from doing things like this, from crowding each other on the twin sized mattress they shared every night so neither of them would wake up screaming. Dorian had brushed his hair from his eyes and held him like he was made of glass, like he would break if anything touched him too harshly. He told him about the tall gates, the trees that touched the clouds, the horses and the koi pond and the sprawling garden perpetually cast in shadow and violet light, about the ghosts that lived inside the walls, the danger he had grown up alongside his entire life. Dorian had listened attentively, his slender fingers curling little patterns into his skin, his pale green eyes fixated on his mouth, fixated on his cheeks and his eyes and the line of his jaw, swallowing the words he spoke into the air between them, letting them melt on his tongue like sugar cubes. 

Now, he was standing at the front door, cheeks pink in the autumn chill, a bruises on his jaw, on his eye, on the bridge of his nose. His curls shone like spun gold in the sunlight, and the moment he saw Miles he dropped his suitcase, biting his lip, nervously glancing at Kate, who had arrived about two days earlier, before he tentatively stepped closer. He looked up at him so carefully, the way he did at school, the way they both did at school, terrified of even looking at each other the wrong way. He glared at Kate, then, with a thrill of fear racing up his spine, he pulled Dorian into a hug. Dorian immediately relaxed against him, burying his face in the crook of his neck and his shoulder, into his red sweater, into his pale skin, breathing him in.

"I missed you, little rose." He felt his cheeks get a little warm, leaning away, looking around for Mrs. Grose briefly. She wasn't near enough to see this, it was only Kate, and Kate wouldn't tell.

Kate was terrified of him.

"I missed you too." He cradled his battered face in one hand, running a careful thumb over his bruise, a violent bloom of indigo on his porcelain cheek. Dorian turned a delicate shade of pink and leaned into his touch. "What are you doing here?"

"I got thrown out too, and after my father found out why-" His expression twisted, a tornado of feeling on the face of a doll. "I don't have anywhere else to go, he knows, he knows, my mom knows, they said it was to be kept quiet, they said it was an ugly thing, it was wrong and it was dirty and they would-" He froze, and tried to fight the tears racing down his cheeks, water melted sugar but he cried honey and paint thinner, he wept sweet poison and choked on the wings they'd torn off his back and shoved down his throat when they found out he liked boys the way he was supposed to like girls, when they found out that Miles liked both. "They told me they were going to fix me, that it was a sickness they knew how to heal. One of those camps," He took a ragged breath, and it felt like a punch in the gut, it felt like a kidney shot, like they'd both be pissing red by the end of the night. "He said if that didn't work he'd solve the problem himself."

His blood reduced to steam, fingers in Dorian's curls, anger flaring to life under his skin, hot and ugly.

"Solve the problem himself." He repeated, and felt a hand on his cheek, he didn't look at him, fixated on the words swimming behind his eyes. Solve the problem himself. Quint said he would solve the problem himself. Quint said he would keep her from running from him next time. Quint said he would solve the problem himself.

" _Miles,_ " He had that foggy, underwater feeling again, like they were speaking to him from the bottom of the ocean, like nothing was quite real, not even Dorian with his soft hands and his knit grey sweater and his cherubic curls. " _Miles, there's nothing you can do about this, not to him, I shouldn't have told you, you don't know when to stop-_ "

"Let's get your things in my room for now, alright?" He said stiffly, leading Dorian through the dark hallways, the entire house washed pale and blueish, grey and violet all over him, all over the walls, all over the property. His room was different. His room felt warm, like reds and yellows, he'd left a CD on, _Molly's Lips_ by _Nirvana_ was playing, _Incesticide_ had always been his favourite album of theirs, just soft enough it didn't make him angry, just angry enough he didn't get bored. He turned it down, crouched on the floor among his scattered records, and looked up at Dorian, who was staring at him, a slow smile creeping over his lips.

"This is your room?" Their room at school had always been a sparse space, bereft of any personal touches, monk-like in its emptiness. The dorm had been a skeleton, his bedroom was trembling with tender life, he'd nurtured it from a seed and watched it bloom into what it was now, the walls coated in posters, little scraps of life, scraps of art. He spotted something on the desk Dorian was leaning against, small and dark and familiar. His boiled blood ran cold.

He caught the spider before it could get to Dorian's hand, watching it crawl up his wrist, over the back of his hand, large by the standards of any other house, but here it felt microscopic. He carefully lowered his hand into the terrarium, holding it in his palm, a waving candle flame, a flicker, hardly a spark of life, but he controlled it utterly, he could snuff out this tiny life and nothing would be able to stop him. He didn't like how much he enjoyed killing things, it felt like it was worse when he was here, like a darkness crept over him until he was virtually unrecognizable from the boy he was at school, all the gentleness leeched out of him, worse and worse every time he woke himself up screaming. The house spider scurried out of his hand and into the terrarium, and Dorian looked closer, curious. Miles had never told him about this, about his pets and his horses and all the rest. He spoke about the property like it was a castle out of a fairytale, like it was perfect and golden and deathless, the opposite of what it really was.

His tarantula opened its little door and grabbed the smaller spider, biting at it harshly, its tiny struggles ceased, and its legs all curled in his spider's mouth.

"Good boy." Miles said faintly, transfixed by death as he always was, fingertips brushing the glass.

"I don't know how you keep one of those, I'm terrified of spiders." Dorian's voice broke him from his trance, trembling faintly.

"They're easy to look after." He let his hand fall, looking up at Dorian again, this time from the terrarium, raising an eyebrow, a slow, soft smile spreading over his mouth. "Can I introduce you to somebody?"

He nodded, letting him take his hand and drag him down labyrinths of hallways, as familiar now as the back of his hand, as the taste of his spit. A maze with a trail of memories like breadcrumbs. The cold floors, the dark shadows and dim patches of light, all leading to one place, all leading to "Flora."

"Miles!" She was always so excited to see him, always so vibrant and alive, her dark hair was messy, her fingers covered in colourful marker stains. She threw herself onto him, arms around his middle, head in his gut. He let go of Dorian to hug her back, moving her with him so he wouldn't have to let her go. "I was drawing the family for Kate, she said I'm really good at drawing, she said I was the best, isn't that so nice? She's really nice, I don't know why you hate her-"

"Flora, I have-“ He looked at Dorian, and at Flora again, dropping his voice into a whisper. "I have a very special secret to tell you." She smiled so wide he almost worried her face would crack, pale and pink and full of life.

"I can keep a secret, I can keep them very very well." She said brightly, so very doll-like, the little porcelain things she carried with her from room to room, the ones scattered around the house, pale and pretty the way she was, small and so easy to destroy. He always loved people made of glass, people he knew he would shatter if he didn't handle them with care. "What is it? What's the secret?"

"This is Dorian," Miles told her, voice small and dramatic, a grand stage whisper. "He's my boyfriend."

" _Boyfriend_ -Boyfriend?" She grinned, and let go of him, throwing herself at Dorian, little arms around his middle, a giggle shaking them both, hugging him the way she always hugged her brother. "I think he's too pretty for you." She let go of him, grabbing her markers, grabbing her drawing and immediately scribbling at it again. "I'll add him now, in a secret way, so Mrs. Grose doesn't see." She grabbed a yellow marker for his hair, he was standing beside Miles, a careful distance between them, friendly. She held up the drawing for Dorian to see, and he went white.

She'd added Quint and Miss Jessel, Quint a scribbled shadow of nightmares, Miss Jessel pretty and blonde, but with a big red stain on her white dress, her lips coloured in blue, her hand on Flora's shoulder with nails as sharp as knives.

"Who is that?" Dorian asked faintly.

"Miss Jessel, she was our last nanny." Flora said brightly, not realizing how uncomfortable Dorian looked, pensive and scared and strange.

"What...happened to her?"

Flora giggled, putting down her markers to rest her chin in the palm of her hand, leaning toward him with laughter bubbly and bright. "Like I'd tell."

" _Flora?_ " Kate's questioning voice, echoing down the hall, an undercurrent of fear when she said his name. " _Miles?_ " Flora laughed again, grabbing Miles' hand and pulling him toward her.

"Come on, can't you be nice to her just this once?" He got an idea, a wicked smile blossoming slowly, one Dorian recognized apparently, based on the way his face lost colour.

"Alright." He shouted down the hallway. "Kate! We're in here!" She was wearing her stupid little heels, he could hear her coming toward them, always so skittish, so weak, terrified of him and of everything else in this house. She had to be tough, or she had to get out, and if she didn't choose soon, this place would choose for her. The property wasn't kind to the weak. If she didn't change something soon this place would shatter her the way it shattered Miss Jessel.

"Miles, Flora... and your guest." Kate smiled diplomatically, her cream coloured skirt and ill-fitting sweater was making him unreasonably angry, her idiotic blonde hair, her dopey smile. He didn't like her. He didn't like her at all. He wanted Miss Jessel back.

"Dorian." He reached forward and shook her hand, and Miles had to swallow bile. An angel shouldn't touch something so filthy, something so horrible and tainted, she was hideous, a creature worse than a devil. What was so horrible a devil couldn't even stand the sight of it?

"Kate." She gave him a stupid smile, and Miles forced himself to speak, so get out something, anything, to make it stop. "You should change." She looked at him sharply, and he had to fight a smile at the naked fear in her eyes every time she met his gaze. She had weak eyes, watery blue. Everything about her was weak. "We're going to practice riding, it'll help you get around the property." She nodded, and stepped away from him, her hands shaking pathetically at her sides. It was almost funny, how scared she was all the time.

"We'll meet you out front, me and Dorian will watch." Flora grabbed his boyfriend's hand, and the two of them vanished into the house, into the yard.

He changed and got the horses ready, entirely aware of the way Dorian was watching him, hawkish and attentive. Kate came outside, finally in practical clothes that didn't look like shit on her, and he grabbed the reins, helping her get on.

"You've ridden before?" She nodded slightly, and he wanted to laugh. "Not a thoroughbred."

"That's what Mrs. Grose calls you, the both of you," Kate said, frowning. "Thoroughbred."

"I know." He said shortly, cracking the whip against the horses flank, watching it pick up speed, paying hawkish attention to her. "Thighs against the horse, you'll fall off like that." He whipped it again, a sharp crack, and he couldn't help but get a sick sense of satisfaction from it, power over pain, power over life, power over death, power over Kate. She looked incredibly uncomfortable, he whipped the horse again. "Thighs against the horse, back straight." She adjusted a little. He whipped it again.

"You don't have to whip her so much." He glared up at her, tension coiled in every one of his muscles, and suddenly he found himself spitting out Quint's words instead of his own, rising in his throat like acid, scorching him the whole way up.

"It's a strong animal. If you don't exert power over it, you'll never gain control." She had to see the naked hatred on his face, the pure loathing in his pleasant smile when he whipped the horse again, and it threw her, and she fell, and he didn't even feel sorry for it.

"Miles!" Flora shouted furiously and ran forward, fussing over her. He didn't try to help her up, he stood with his arms crossed over his chest, looking at her with nothing but disgust, the whip tight in his grip.

"I told you," He dropped it to the ground, a mocking smile fixing itself on his mouth. "Thighs against the horse." She stared at him, mouth open, brow furrowed, and he ignored her in favour of fixing the saddle, unreasonable anger coursing through him like fire, like his body was an oil soaked rag and she was a lit match. He absently heard Kate ask Flora if she wanted to go to to the koi pond, his blood pounding through him so intensely he could almost hear it.

He felt a gentle hand on his shoulder, and he turned, ready to hurl more cruelty at Kate, and froze when he saw Dorian's face, twisted up with concern, pale eyes shining nervously. The bruises on his face didn't even make Miles angry anymore, they made him sad. Dorian opened his mouth and he swore it was like hearing summer speak, like the wind in the trees on the longest day of the year, sitting with Flora on the property, in the garden, beside the pool, both of them laughing and warm.

"Miles, what the hell was that?" He touched his face, a hand curling over his jaw, delicate and sweet, so different from the way he treated her, because she was filthy, she was tainted, worse than a demon, worse than the ghosts inside the walls. Dorian was an angel, a spirit that was made of light, impossibly beautiful, impossibly gentle and kind. Something like that had to be nurtured, protected, if you didn't look after it, it would be destroyed. The world was too cruel to allow beautiful things to exist without killing them, he would be plucked like a flower at the first opportunity unless Miles was there to stop them, to protect him. A boy made of beauty, a boy made of holy light.

"Riding lesson." He smiled easily, relaxed, soft as he always was with his boyfriend. "Are you coming to the koi pond with us? You can ride with me." He looked mystified, but nodded slowly. Miles helped get Kate back on a horse, and they rode as a group to the koi ponds. The property was beautiful, more beautiful with Dorian alongside him, his arms wrapped around his waist, his cheek pressed into his back, the warmth of him overwhelming and gentle all at once. The koi pond was quiet, peaceful, the whispering of the breeze in the trees surrounding it, the fish swimming silently under still water.

The only thing ruining the perfect picture was a fish out of water, birds pecking at it, ripping off chunks of living flesh. Miles ran to it, shooing at the birds, staring at the fluttering almost-corpse at his feet, and he made a decision.

He raised his boot, and slammed it on the fish's skull, crushing it instantly. The frantic fluttering of its gills stopped.

"Miles!" Kate's horrified shriek rang through the clearing, echoing off the water. She sounded like Miss Jessel did when she spoke to Quint, terrified. "Why would you do that?" Flora was upset, clinging to her leg, Dorian was standing a few feet away, wide-eyed and bloodless.

"Nothing should have to suffer." He wanted to kick the dead fish back into the water, instead he decided to go back to Dorian, who grabbed him roughly as soon as he got close.

"What the hell are you doing?"

"What are you talking about?" He feigned confusion, wincing when Dorian tightened his grip on his arm, a glaring green-eyed boy, his mouth twisted into an ugly frown, his voice horrible and breathless, a living entity in its own right.

"You're different here." Dorian said sharply, his expression softening a little. "Is it because of Quint? I know you were close-" Hands all over him like branding irons, bruises on his body like ink blots on white paper, the hands of a man turning his boy-body into a Rorschach Test he could fuck into whenever he got bored or horny or helpless to the ghosts that whispered to Miles now, _you're the man of the house, you're the man, you're in charge, who would stop you, who would want to stop you? claim it, bite it, burn it,_ and Quint still haunting him like he had his mind tattooed onto his own, _fuck her, she'll like it eventually, we always did have a thing for blondes, we always did have a thing for neck tattoos, only sluts get tattoos, Miles, she wants it, Miles, the same way you wanted it, Miles._

_Say thank you._

_Say thank you and kiss me and I won't tell anyone what you just let me do to you._

"I'm fine, Dorian." He jerked his hands out of his grip, hating himself when sadness cut through him like a cold wind.

Jessel had died because of him.

Jessel had died, and it could have been him, Quint liked to wrap his hands around Miles like that, cut off his pleading so he could do what he wanted to him without guilt getting in the way. Miles hoped he had felt guilty, at least. It had started when he was as old as Flora is now, Quint had done it for his own good, he was thoroughbred boy, a strong animal, if you don't exert power over it, you'll never gain control, he needed to be controlled, that's what he had told him. Now he had Dorian, and Dorian had him, and they had the scars to prove it, carving words into each other with razor blades and pocket knives, carving lines into their own skin and each other, names cut into pale flesh. 

"I don't believe you."

**Author's Note:**

> it’s been a bit since i’ve seen the movie so be gentle! this will probably have a few more chapters :) 
> 
> comments and kudos are greatly appreciated!


End file.
